Author: Debra Cox

Given that the job of Prime Minister is quite intense, it should come to no surprise how busy Tony Blair was. This goes to all people in high office. People like me, who go to work five days a week, have nothing to complain about. Sure, we may feel our days get busy at times. But imagine if you were the Prime Minister of a country. Enjoy working seven days a week! Well, I’m sure the workload on the weekends is trimmed down. But make no mistake, there is always work for a leader of a country. Let’s take a look at the schedule of Tony Blair from when he was in office.

Mr. Blair wakes up at 6:30 am. This may surprise many people because many people wake up before that. And they aren’t even leaders of a country! I suppose, however, the Prime Minister needs his rest. He goes to bed at 11 pm, which allows him a solid 7 1/2 hours of sleep.

The first thing Mr. Blair does in the morning, after waking up, talks on the phone with his staff. This happens around 7 am. Here, they talk about the plan of the day and any issues that may arise. It wouldn’t be smart for a leader of a country to simply play it by ear. Mr. Blair is smart because he gets everyone on the same page early on in the day.

The next thing Mr. Blair does, at 8 am, is probably his most important. He has breakfast with his children! He has nearly an hour to do this. This sends a strong message to all parents everywhere. If the leader of a country can find time to have breakfast with his children, so can you!

Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, is keeping busy these days. Just last year, in 2016, he created the Tony Blair Institute. He meant this institute to be a global force for good.

This group is attempting to tackle the effects of globalization. Specifically, they want globalization to help the many, instead of a few. On their website, they show an aerial photo of dwellings, with a long street going from top to bottom.

On the left side of the street, we can see a wealthy neighborhood. The houses are large, even by Americans standards. A quick view of the photo has clues that the photo was taken in some other country, however. We’ll get to why I think that in a moment. Some of the houses have swimming pools. It’s difficult to predict from the photo, but it looks as if each house is around 3,000 square feet. That’s very large!

The neighborhood is beautiful. It’s very green, thanks to an ample amount of healthy-looking trees which stand beside each house. The streets look very clean, and there are cars parking along the street. On another side of the main street, we see a very different picture.

Small houses, which actually look like huts, are scattered everywhere. These look like they are about 800 square feet each. They are all dirty and there are no roads in this neighborhood. This is because these people probably do not have a vehicle. What Tony Blair wants to focus on is the drastic difference between the rich and poor in this country.

Tony Blair’s institute will attempt to fight for economic fairness. The organization is new but there is plenty of research on their website detailing this. As 2017 comes to a close, they may put new materials on their website. They may also lay out their plan for 2018.

Tony Blair has always aimed to serve the people. While he was Prime Minister of the UK, he served his own people. Now, he aims to serve the greater number of people all over the world, with a focus on Africa. Before there was the Tony Blair Institute, there was the Tony Blair Associates, and other groups like it.

This group was formed many years ago, in 2008. The purpose of this group is for Tony Blair to provide pro bono advice. This advice would be tailored for governments, NGOs, and religious organizations. His first client was Kuwait and he has since worked with many individuals and organizations. Tony Blair Associates, however, has not been immune to controversy.

Tony Blair was at one point an envoy to the Middle East. However, he was also working in concert with his organization. This created, some protested, a conflict of interest situation. Protesters said that he should be going to the Middle East for one organization or the other, not both. Some said that Tony Blair was using his dual roles as a way to profit for himself.

Much of the criticism stems from 2014. Also, in 2014, Tony Blair advised the president of Egypt. He again went there in a dual role and received the same criticism as when he advised Kuwait. Tony Blair may have been criticized, but he has not stopped using his organizations in a way he sees fit. However, Tony Blair Associates has not seen as much controversy since that year. And there’s a reason for that.

Last year, in 2016 Tony Blair closed this particular organization, though he has others. Protesters said that he made millions of dollars while he should have been working on a truly pro bono basis, which was the original purpose of this organization.

Given the UK’s history of war, there are probably many more UK leaders who would fit the title of War Minister. Both world wars come to mind. After all, who could pass up leaders such as Neville Chamberlain? This doesn’t minimize Chamberlain’s great actions during his life. But Tony Blair served during a fairly tumultuous time for modern times. He served during the Iraqi War.

He actually played a key role in supporting it. Support came in the fashion of sending UK troops. The UK, outside of the US, sent some of the largest numbers of military personnel to Iraq during the Iraqi War.

Tony Blair led the UK for nearly 10 years. The Iraqi War began in 2003, which was about halfway through his rule. At the time, governments and citizens believed that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction”. People like Tony Blair and the US President George W. Bush believed that Iraq could use these weapons in a terrorist type way. But Saddam Hussein stated that he did not have any of these weapons.

One of the first steps was to send weapons inspectors. The inspectors visited many military sites around the country. They found nothing. Western governments thought that Iraq would simply hide or transfer the weapons before the inspectors arrived. All these years later, we now know that Iraq never had these weapons. But the Western government acted on intelligence they thought was more solid.

Tony Blair was recently in the news regarding this war. In 2016, a commission made their results known about the war. They said that Tony Blair’s use of force during that time was unwarranted. They said that Mr. Blair should not even have sent troops to Iraq. Given this, Mr. Blair will probably not face any jail time, even if the current belief is that the war was not justified.

In the history pages, Tony Blair has been known as a popular politician leading the Labour-Party who also became prime minister of the United Kingdom. In his early age, Tony Blair joined Labour-Party when he was living in Durham, England. At that time his age was only 39 years, he was the youngest to represent his Party as a leader. He took the chair for the position of Prime minister; United Kingdom when he was 44 years old only.
Scotland was the birth place of Tony Blair in 1953, however most of the time during his childhood was spent in Durham, England with his father; Leo Charles Blair, who had been a famous attorney. Tony Blair improved his commitment and followed his father’s career path, as he completed the undergraduate degree. He got admission to study law in Oxford University and graduated in 1975, followed by internship where he focused on employment law according to Queen’s Counsel Alexander Irvine. Tony Blair was good in communication skills which helped him a lot to achieve practical awareness regarding regional political scenarios.
Tony Blair maintained the notable impact of local miners in politics of United Kingdom. Later in late 1970, Labour-Party was in crisis. Tony Blair was into law practice; a barrister when he joined the Labour-Party. Tony Blair in 1982 tried to win for the seat in Beaconsfield District, as a Parliamentarian but failed. However, he continued to influence the Labour-Party through his hard work and proved his charm and competence. In 1983, Tony Blair won election from Sedge Field-District which is close to his childhood place Durham. In 1994, he got the first opportunity to lead the party when he was elected leader of the Labour Party, after two consecutive incidents; resignation of Kinnock and death of Smith. This made him achieve the distinctive historical position as a youngest leader.
While in office, Tony Blair has a noteworthy contribution in cutting taxes, boosting trade and enhancing the powers of government. Tony Blair remained leader of the Party during 1994 to 2007. He held the chair of the PM UK from 1997-2007.
Tony Blair had the mature approach towards the Global politics, however, Iraq war was proved to be the setback for him due to the lower rate of approval. Since the rate of casualties was way higher than it was initially expected, this affected the popularity graph of Tony Blair in an adverse manner. The majority of the public was accusing him of misguiding the parliamentarians regarding the significance of British participation in this war. This caused a notable decrease in the majority of Labour-Party as shown by the elections’ results; held in 2005 and restricted to 66 seats only. This generated an immense pressure on him, not only from the public but also from his own party representatives, as he was held responsible for this decrease. Due to this pressure, Blair was left with no other option but to submit his resignation to decrease this pressure on the party, however, he made the formal submission of resignation took place in June 2007.
As a policy standing, Blair agreed on the need of economic prosperity and social justice, which is considered by critics, to be the major reason behind his popularity. He believed on radicalization and was placed on the right of political scenarios. His approach towards the low-income segments was really admirable for the humanist school of thought; for instance, increase in the minimum wages, and introducing employment rights; was the main attraction for many of the critics. His positive approach was also visible through his acts for the continuation of Thatcher’s trade union reforms. All I can say is that Tony Blair certainly is no Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps if he had performed more tree removal services, you could call him old Abe, but until then, he’s only ever going to be viewed as your average PM.

I figured I would start with Tony Blair’s early life. As in, his life before he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1997 and Leader of the Labour Party in 2004.

Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on May 6, 1953. He is the younger of two sons. Tony spent the first 19 months of his life in Edinburgh but would spend the next 4 years of his childhood in South Australia where his father taught at the University of Adelaide. Tony would spend the rest of his childhood in Durham, England where his father lectured at Durham University.

After attending Chorister school in Durham, Tony went on to attend Fettes College, a prestigious boarding school, where he would meet Charlie Falconer, whom he later appointed to Lord Chancellor. What I find really interesting, and not well known, is that after Fettes College, Tony Blair lived in London for a year where he tried to find fame and fortune as a rock music promoter, even playing guitar and singing in a band himself. What else is neat, is that he did stand up comedy as well during this time. During this time, Tony Blair met fellow student and Anglican priest, Peter Thomson, who awakened his religious faith and left-wing politics. Tony’s mother died of cancer while he was attending Oxford, something that deeply affected him for years. After graduating from Oxford in 1975, Blair became a member of Lincoln’s Inn, enrolled as a pupil barrister, and met his future wife, into Cherrie Booth.

Around this time is when Tony joined the Labour party. And then in 1982, he was elect the conservative seat of Beaconsfield. In 1987, Tony was elected to the Shadow Cabinet. And in 1994, when John Smith, his predecessor, died of a Heart Attack, Tony was the clear choice for the Labour leadership role.

Tony Blair had an extremely interesting life and it’s strange sometimes how the smallest of events can dictate your fate. Imagine being in your twenties, in 1970’s London, playing in a rock group and making appearances as a stand-up comic. The last thing on your mind would be, how do I become the Labour party leader, and even further from your mind would be, how do I become Prime Minister of England. Tony is just a guy that puts his best foot every day and lets life take him where it may. I think we all have a lot to learn from Tony Blair and I think that we should all be happy that he took the path that he did otherwise he could be working at my brothers Pool Deck Remodeling companies.